


Darling, What Did You Bury?

by PettyMermaidsGf



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, BAMF Bonnie Bennett, Bonnie is 22 and Damon is 25 because I do NOT fuck with the original character ages; it’s creepy af, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Redeemable Damon Salvatore, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Temporary Character Death, i say temporary but it's probs gonna be a bit like let's be real, what does Damon say to death? hands off my witch; fuckers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21929671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PettyMermaidsGf/pseuds/PettyMermaidsGf
Summary: Bonnie Bennett sacrifices herself for her friends for the last time; or at least, that was the plan, anyway. She wasn't really counting on a do-over. Enter Damon Salvatore, who says fuck fate, fuck losing hope, and seeks to bring his best friend back to life by any means necessary.Join him in a series of interconnected vignettes that explore the depths of his loss, loneliness, and all the other things he and Bonnie have tried to bury.
Relationships: Bonnie Bennett/Damon Salvatore, Caroline Forbes/Stefan Salvatore, Lorenzo "Enzo" St. John/Original Male Character
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bonnie & Damon ❖ Gasoline](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/544348) by XxListenSoftlyxX. 



> Anyone request a Hades/Persephone-esque fic? Orpheus and Eurydice? No? No one? Oh well. Have it anyway.
> 
> I was in a mood to watch TVD and write angsty fic on the lengths Damon would go to in order to bring Bonnie back from the dead.
> 
> Because fuck canon, Bonnie deserves someone to fight for her, to care about her, protect her, and love her as deep and as unwavering as they're able. Bonnie Bennett deserves better, and the CW's adaption did her so dirty.
> 
> Title adapted from Hozier's "Like Real People Do", which you should totally listen to now.

* * *

_“Then I remembered you’re my best friend, and that if anything ever happened to you, I would lose my fucking mind.”_

He can remember the very moment he’d said it - and the bourbon doesn’t dull the memory at all. Not the too-warm, too-close, almost claustrophobic tension in the room that lingered whenever she was near.

Not the weight of words he couldn’t say, wouldn’t say, to cheapen the moment and make it into a joke, make it easier for her to walk away from him like she should’ve. Or the other words that were always right there, right on the tip of his tongue, sharp, sudden and as startling true as anything else about him. Not the feel of her shoulders under his fingertips, solid and tense and real, or the set of her lips as she’d frowned at him. No, maybe frowned wasn’t the right word, but Damon can never put name to the expression on her face that day. She’d looked…

She’d looked at him like she was dragging the words from the very depths of his soul. And he’d had no mind to stop it or the sense to ask how - maybe he should’ve. She’d gazed at him and reached past the nonchalant-and cool sarcasm he draped around himself like a favorite leather jacket, past the pain and self-loathing he carried on his sleeve, past all the centuries-buried hurt and longing and loneliness of him and dug out the deepest truth of his being, one he’d never uttered aloud before: Damon _needs_ Bonnie.

It should be impossible. It should be implausible. The kind of one-in-a-trillion, never-gonna-happen, in-your-wildest-dreams shit that's lifted from a page in his brother's angsty romance novels. But it's real and it's true and it scares the ever-loving hell out of him.

And now she’s gone.

No, worse than gone.

Damon scowls as the memory warps and the image of her standing in her warm, claustrophobic Whitmore dorm gives way to the deep, dark cemetery roads he'd traveled for her funeral, a thick crown of trees overshadowing the cloudless gray sky.

Because Bonnie’s worse than gone - she’s dead.

She’s dead and it’s all his fault.

It’s memories like these that make him absolutely loathe being a vampire. Some things are better left unseen, forgotten, abandoned to the ebbs and flows of time. But for those like him, there is no forgetting - his hyper-improved sense of memory won’t allow him that much peace.

Throat choked with sobs, he hurls the bottle of bourbon to the ground and relishes in the sound of it shattering at his feet. It’d been stupid expensive too; he almost smiles at the memory of he and Bonnie promising to drink it only when they’d lost hope while trapped in an empty, desolate and unending version of Mystic Falls circa May 10th, 1994.

Fuck that.

He hasn’t lost hope yet - only his damn mind. That’s the only explanation he has for Stefan, for Caroline, for anyone, when they ask him what the fuck he’s doing stealing a car (his own is far too obvious for his purposes), hightailing it to Georgia, and going on the hunt for the second most powerful witch alive: Sheila Bennett.

And it takes some doing. Okay, maybe a lot of doing. He loses count of the number of times he has to go to the black market, like the _actual_ black market, with Enzo as a guide because Stefan had flat-out refused to go back to the South after the last time (the last time, he was nearly drowned and then burned at the stake…spoiler alert, it didn’t work). They walk for what feels like hours this time, like weeks, like years, through back-alley dive-bars and down shadowy sets of stairs and through cramped tunnels that are probably crawling with mold and mildew and a thousand other things he doesn’t want to think about.

But that’s not the end. Once the walking’s through, then they have to wait. To wait and linger and barter and, Enzo cautions him, maybe even steal. But Damon doesn’t care. He doesn’t fucking care - he’ll do whatever he has to do in order to track Sheila down. Because she’s the only witch in the world powerful enough to bring Bonnie back to life.

“I don’t care what it takes to bring Bonnie back, okay?” Damon has to yell to be heard as they duck beneath an awning to try and beat the worst of the rain. It’s coming down in sheets overhead, soaking through their clothes and settling down deep into Damon’s bones, lingering there in what he's sure will amount to a cold that'll knock him on his ass once all this is over. If it's ever over.

“Careful there, mate,” Enzo cautions with the ghost of a smile as he pulls his hood up over his head to shield himself from the rain. “All magic comes with a price, and you've just gotten started racking up your debt.”

Were Lorenzo ever to learn to keep that pretty mouth of his shut, he thinks they could actually be something like friends. But Damon's too wrecked and hurt and strung-out on his own heartache to be in a mood to make any friends, much less make nice.

So he snorts at the line and jabs back, “Thank you Captain Obvious, I’d have had _absolutely no idea_ otherwise!”

They’re more or less forced to huddle together to avoid getting swept away by the rush and swell of patrons roaming about. Humans, vampires, werewolves and witches, and all manner of other creatures he’s not the words to name linger here - they duck in and out of shadowy alleys and murky, smoke-filled taverns, inspecting stalls for their wares or slowing down a moment to offer coins to buskers.

And Enzo, more than used to his outbursts at this point in the game, just gives a rogue smirk and a shake of his head. “Just what I thought then, hm?”

That puts Damon even more on edge and he steps closer, demanding sharply, “ _What’s_ just like you thought?”

With no real room to bolt and even less opportunity to run now that he’s cornered, Enzo gives him a slow smile as the truth dawns on him and says, matter-of-fact, “You really do care for her, don’t you? Color me surprised, I didn't think you capable of the feeling.”

 _What the fuck kind of question even is that?_ Would Damon be here if he didn’t care about Bonnie? Would he have endured a thirteen hour road trip (it was supposed to take fourteen and a half but he’s a determined motherfucker when he’s angry and heartbroken and grieving) and Enzo’s shitty alternative playlists, general douche-baggery and holier-than-thou attitude if he didn’t care about Bonnie? Would he have ate greasy food from gas stations and corner stores and fast-food joints that all blurred together like the dotted white lines on the road as he drove, mind-numbingly exhausted and tense and hurting, if he didn’t really care about Bonnie?

Would he have broken through every hardcore protection ward over the Bennett home just to get through the damn door, read every grimoire and spell book and _old-school Southern cooking recipe_ cover-to-bloody-cover with Caroline to try and find a way to bring Bonnie back to life if he didn’t really care about her? Would he have stayed up long into the night well past the point Care packed it in, despondent and watery-eyed, to desperately and feverishly search for even a hint of something, _anything_ , that’d breathe life into the witch again if he didn’t really care about her? Would he have waded into swamps in the dead of night, dug through the mud in putrid marshes under the light of a full moon, or tried bargaining with Bonnie’s oldest ancestors to _just bring her back, please, have my soul in exchange_ , if he didn’t really care about her?

Before Damon can answer in the same sudden, sharp, knee-jerk fashion as before that _of course he fucking does, has Enzo been paying the least bit of attention here?,_ the Brit just claps him on the back and says that good, it’ll be easier this way then.

Later, much later, Damon regrets that he never asked what exactly would be easier.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vampires don't exactly need sleep, but when depleted of energy, will fall into a stasis much like human-sleep - and Damon once joked that he slept better on Bonnie's dorm room floor.
> 
> After her death, he finds out just how true that is, and realizes that he can't even sleep without her there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where angst piles atop angst and I regret nothing. Twenty-two year old Bonnie (who hasn’t destroyed hell) died trying to separate Elena's lifeforce from Katherine's - and now Damon's hellbent on bringing her back.
> 
> He just needs to break down on her floor first because he and immortality's miserable without her. (Delena, who? We don't know her.) Not beta'd. Lazily proofread. I'm not sorry. ^_^
> 
> Also: Bonnie does NOT die by suicide in this story, we are not going there.

He knew it wasn’t going to be easy. He’d died before, twice, and there’s a reason why coming back to life just isn’t fucking done.

It’s not merely that it’s insensible. Ill-advised. Or immoral. It’s not about sense, advice, or religious morals. It’s not about God or hell or eternity, even.

It’s that the pain of being brought back to life, of having your soul torn from the beyond and slammed back into your still-warm body, is so excruciating, so agonizing, that it’s almost incomprehensible. And he’s lived through that pain twice now - once when Bonnie brought him back to life with a bloodstone at his throat, and a second when she died saving them all.

They’d been ungrateful bastards, asking Bonnie to step into harm’s way for their own safety and never thanking her when she did. They’d been ungrateful, hopeful bastards, growing excited when she’d unearthed a centuries-old spell to separate Elena from Katherine’s lineage. They’d been ungrateful, hopeful, and idiotic fucking _bastards_ , hugging her tight and wishing her luck before they let her lock herself away in her dorm room and tempt death, God, and the Petrova bloodline all in one go.

But she’d done it. And she’d died for it.

Damon thinks he was the biggest idiot of them all, because he’d touched her shoulder and asked her, “D’you want me to stay with you, during? Y’know, just in case something goes a little sideways.”

And she’d laughed and pushed his hand away, said, “Something always goes a little sideways, Damon, you know I’ll be fine.”

She’d went to dump all her books on the coffee-table, ancient tomes that whispered their age in leather and rot and the subtle scent of mildew and he’d tried again. Touched her arm, reminded her, “But I _want_ to be here, Bonnie.”

Bonnie had stilled at the touch of his hand this time, paused, and then asked, “To make me pancakes afterwards?” with the ghost of a smile on her face.

It was an inside joke, a bright spot of memory amidst the dark, monotonous horror of having lived the same day over and over again for months at a time.

“Always, Bon.” He’d meant it then, and he means it now as he says it to her photograph. It’s the one he keeps in his wallet. The one he’s told not a soul about, not even Stefan.

It’s the one he thinks she looks most herself, happy and resplendent and a quiet force of nature. It’s a candid photo on instant film, her eyes closed to the afternoon sun, lips curved in an open-mouthed smile as she claps her hands and laughs hysterically at one of his shit jokes.

His jokes are always shit, mind you. But she’d laughed that day like she’d never been hurt, like nothing could ever hurt her again, and it was a sound he wanted to bottle for every minute of his immortal life he’d be without her.

Christ, he thinks he misses her laugh the most. And he knows it’s going to be a long, miserable slog of a day when he looks at the worn wallet-photo this early in the morning. But he can’t sleep, or he wakes from nightmares in a cold sweat and pants, reaches for his phone, and then he _remembers_ \- Bonnie’s dead, so she can’t exactly answer his 2AM calls.

He gets dressed in the dark and takes the long way to Whitmore in a haze, his mind playing the ghost of her laugh even with the windows down and the radio on. Fucking hell. The drive there doesn’t take nearly long enough at seventy-miles an hour to calm his racing thoughts, and there aren’t enough heartbroken emo hits in the fucking world to mend his cold, dead and dried-up heart.

He leaves the Camaro in a no-parking zone and walks across the lawn. The sprinklers are on, water misting across the grass as a cool fog settles over town. He hasn’t bothered wearing his leather jacket tonight, and were he human, the chill would be enough to make him shiver. The distant hum and chatter of a party sounds in the distance, all loud music and drunk laughter and heavy, shuddering bass. It almost makes him angry. It almost makes him want to sob. It almost makes him want to set something on fire.

Because Bonnie should be here. She should be here getting to be a college junior. She should be here, studying hard and sleeping in late and never updating her damn social media. She should be here, downing sweet tea while she paints her nails and talks to him over the phone, ranting about her classes and coursework and that one really hot professor Damon kind of wants dead. She should be here, watching movies with Caroline and Elena and racking up debt on Stefan’s credit card and wrinkling up her nose at Damon’s vamp-cake offerings.

She should be here, having a safe and normal and human life. She should be here, having fun and being weird and stupid and alive. She should be here. She should be here. She should be here. It’s an unending chorus in his head that starts to run together the longer he walks places they used to go together. The library where they'd rented movies, the indie coffeeshop that sold her ridiculously-overpriced tea, past the science observatory he kept saying he'd take her to, and the labyrinth sanctuary where she'd walk carrying a worry stone. 

_She should be here._ But she’s dead. She’s dead and there’s no coming back from that and he can’t fucking stand it.

There has to be a way, he thinks now as he badges into her dorm building. She’d given him a visitor ID pass after he’d broken in one afternoon and she'd made him swear he wouldn’t do it again - said it was going to freak out the other residents, make them think she had a stalker ex-boyfriend or something. And he’d laughed and joked, “Oh, I could be your stalker ex-boyfriend or something”, and she’d just looked at him.

She’d looked and looked and looked and he’d wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. He was always doing that. Not just with her, but with everyone. Finally, her eyes bright and unreadable and the ghost of a smile on her face like that day in the cave with the Ascendant, she’d echoed, “Yeah, you’re definitely something.”

He hadn’t been reading into that, had he? Because it felt like it meant something to her.

Christ, everything felt like it meant something with her.

_Everything._

Like that time he’d loitered around in the hallway waiting until her eight AM class ended - which took fucking _forever_ , by the way - just to hand her a large sweet tea with extra lemon and a bag full of blueberry scones.

She’d given him that look again, slow and unblinking and just a little too long as the crowd thinned out around them and the not-hot-professor gathered their things in the lecture hall behind them.

Then, finally, she’d tilted her head to the side and asked in a soft voice, “What, you couldn’t sleep?”

He’d thought she’d meant to sound irritated or disinterested but it came out as anything but. It sounded like a secret shared in the deep blue hours of the night during a basement slumber party. And he’d looked at her and shrugged and said, “Mm, well if you can believe it, it just so happens my bed isn’t quite as comfy as your dorm room floor.”

And she’d laughed, taken a long sip of her tea and murmured, “Okay, now _that’s_ a lie.”

He supposes now that it was his fault for thinking she’d read between the lines. Because it wasn’t that her floor was _actually_ more comfortable than his bed, it was that he preferred falling asleep with her around. Which was fucking hilarious when considering that they once couldn’t stand each other. Even funnier when taking into account how many times they’d threatened each other on price of death, or plotted the other's elaborate and violent murder.

But it’s true.

Bonnie’s very presence settles some eternal, always-awake part of his brain. She soothes his tired mind into a sort of stasis, lulling him into a state much like human sleep where his breathing slows and his mind falls into a deep, blissful unawareness. He hasn’t known that level of calm since the day she’d died. And though it’s not sleep, it’s the closest he can get as a vampire. He’s been running on empty for days, weeks, and not even the fevered-rush of the chase or fresh blood on his tongue can clear his head.

Not like this.

Not like Bonnie.

So Damon Salvatore breaks into his dead best friend’s dorm building, climbs the stairs to the second floor, and unlocks the door to her room. No one’s been in here since that very night. He hadn’t let them. _Couldn’t_ let them. Not after he’d watched campus police kick the door in, not after he’d watched the EMTs shine a flashlight into her eyes and declare she’d coded. He didn’t need a medical degree to know what that’d meant. And he’d pleaded with them, demanded them, to fucking _do something -_ the harsh, sudden force and tremor of his own voice had stunned them all into silence for a heavy moment before they'd gotten to work.

But it hadn't been enough. It hadn't brought her back.

He’d blocked out the memories before, but now they all come flooding back. Strong as a tidal wave, it's almost enough to bring him to his knees. The feel of her still-warm hand in his, growing cold, the taste of his own tears as he choked back a bitter, angry sob, the harsh swear on his lips as he insisted _nobody touch her,_ the all-consuming urge to wrap her in his arms and never let go, and the numbness that’d engulfed him after they’d taken her away, seconds after he’d kissed her forehead and promised her he’d make this right.

And now, Damon Salvatore lays flat on Bonnie Bennett’s dorm room floor, closes his eyes, and wishes and wants and aches for human sleep with a force he hasn’t felt in centuries.

Sleep doesn’t come.

He mists Bonnie’s perfume over the room, puts on her favorite playlist, and even drinks a glass of sweet tea with extra lemon before he tries again. His back against the hardwood floor, his eyes closed to the ceiling, and all he can think of is the glorious sound of her laugh and the feeling of her hand in his. When they’d died together the first time, they’d been holding hands. When she’d died the second time, he hadn’t been there to hold her hand. No one had. And she deserves better than that.

It’s three-thirty in the morning, he hasn’t slept in sixteen days, and he needs his best friend back. Never in his hundred and seventy-eight years did he thinks he’d say this, but he needs the Bennett witch back. He needs _his_ Bennett witch back. He needs his best friend. Out of his mind, touch-starved, and more than a little desperate, he throws her ugly desk lamp at the wall, scowls when it breaks, and then snatches Ms. Cuddles off the unmade bed. But he can’t destroy the worn, well-loved teddy bear - not only is it where Bonnie once stored her magic, it’s also her oldest, most beloved childhood friend.

And he can't destroy that. Not now, not tomorrow, not the rest of his undying days on this wretched earth. But it's so fucking _hard_ because he wants to incinerate the whole world over now that he's without her.

He clutches the bear to his chest and stumbles to his knees in the dark. He thinks of Bonnie like this, all alone, shaking and scared as the spell grew out of control. The thought makes him sick and has him choking back sobs. What if she thought she could brave it alone, that she’d make it, that it’d work out somehow? Or worse, what if she’d tried to call out to him, to Caroline, to anyone, and no one came? And that’s what does him in - the thought of Bonnie, ever the optimist, the relentless martyr, the cross-bearer, pleading for help and finding none before death came to claim her.

Damon Salvatore holds tight to Mrs. Cuddles, breathes in the subtle, fading scent of Bonnie’s shampoo, and weeps for all the world like he’s the one dying.

He knew life without her wasn't going to be easy. He just didn't think it'd be this damned hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mayhaps I shall come up with a Halloween-centric drabble next that's lighter on angst and heavier on fluff for the next chapter. Fluff is love, fluff is life. I just need to write a good soul-crushing angst fic every now and then, y'know?

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was motivated by shitty TVD canon, XxListenSoftlyxX's lovely Bamon vid, and Halsey's angsty Gasoline lyrics that've probably haunted the likes of similar fics for years.
> 
> All future updates will be at a glacial pace because being a depressed Millennial with responsibilities sucks, 0/10 do not recommend


End file.
